


14 Hours

by bazinga01



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazinga01/pseuds/bazinga01
Summary: Air Nazar, New York City to Tehran.





	14 Hours

**Author's Note:**

> alright, this is it. my final homage to season 1 of the bold type and my last fic before season 2 starts to air. thanks for hanging in there in this hiatus with me and continuing to encourage and support my writing, it's been a very long but fun hiatus.

She manages to keep herself composed until she reaches her seat. But once she settles in, purse tucked under the seat in front of her, the aching pressure in her chest cracks open, tears spilling forth down her cheeks faster than she can stop them.

She draws in a ragged breath, wipes at her eyes with her scarf and ducks her head to avoid the concerned gazes of people in her aisle.

Kat is no longer with her. She’s getting deported.

They make announcements over the speakers, first in English, then in Farsi, and finally in Arabic.

_“Welcome to Air Nazar flight 1703 with non-stop service to Tehran…”_

She tunes it out. All the noise, the shuffling of suitcases being placed in overhead bins, the chatter of people getting settled in around her, it fades to mute. All she can hear is—

_I’m sorry that you’re the one going and I’m the one crying._

_No, five more minutes please._

_Adena El-Amin, will you go on a date with me?_

All she can hear is Kat. She keeps the words close, tucks them into the precious corners of her memory, tries to hold onto every detail.

“Ms. El-Amin?”

Her name is repeated twice before she’s able to focus, and she blinks up through her tears, sees a flight attendant looking at her with confusion and concern.

“Yes. Hello, sorry,” she sniffles, giving a polite smile.

“Someone has given up their seat for you, miss. You’ve been upgraded to first class. If you’d like to gather your belongings I can escort you to your new seat.”

She laughs, a choked tearful sound that catches on her sadness, because Kat must’ve tracked someone down to trade her ticket. Of course she did.

“Okay, yes sure,” she nods, wiping her eyes again and grabbing her bag.

She ends up on the upper level of the plane, in an area that she’s never even seen before. It’s so spacious that it nearly stuns her. Her seat is in its own private area and can lower into a bed. It seems almost a waste, that this is the moment in her life when she’s given the chance to enjoy something like this. That when she’s somehow landed in first class all she wants to do is cry.

A very attentive flight attendant brings her tissues and a glass of water.

She closes her eyes, fading out of her surroundings and into the quiet intimacy of her thoughts. Into bare skin beneath blankets in an airport lounge, into affectionate laughter and that passionate gaze that has slowly consumed her. She fades into the warmth of Kat holding her close, of lips kissing her shoulder, and anchors herself there.

The plane speeds forward, lifts off from the tarmac, and she anchors her heart in New York.

 

 

She loses track of time for a while, as her tears give way to exhaustion and she drifts into sleep.

 When she wakes again, bright midday sunlight is streaming through the window and she slowly comes to her senses, refocusing into her surroundings. It only takes a couple of minutes for a flight attendant to notice she’s awake.

“Can I get you anything, Ms. El-Amin? Something to drink?”

Tea. That’s what she needs right now. Some hot tea, and her journal.

 

She sips from her mug, staring out at the blue sky and trying to pull together her thoughts.

This time right now, these 14 hours in the air between New York and home, is like a bubble outside of reality. A bubble where everything is on pause and there’s nothing to do but process.

She holds her pen over a blank page for what feels like hours.

Then, finally, she writes. Barely. All that she can manage right now is—

شما در قلب و در همه جا هستی

 

_You’re in my heart and everywhere._

 

 

Daylight is dimming by the time she returns to the page of her journal, and this time it’s English that spills out of her. Because it’s for Kat. Somehow the words are for her.

_I never expected you, though I think perhaps I should have._

_I should have known a force like you would eventually come into my life. To bring so much passion, so much beauty. I just never expected it would be now. I never expected it would be in New York. I never expected you._

_I tried to forget you in Paris. What an impossibility._

_You are with me, somehow, wherever I am. I hope you know this. I pray you know this. We will be together again, and soon I think. But you are with me regardless._

_I think it would scare you if you could see all that you make me feel. I suspect you have no idea what you do to me. I wonder how you would react if you knew. Would you kiss me? Would you blush and avoid my eyes? Would you run?_

 

 The words come to her in fragments, with no real sense of structure. She pauses often, starts and stops as she lets the ink flow out and bring her thoughts to paper.

It’s cathartic, she realizes. To finally let herself feel and process, separate from what was happening with Coco now that that’s over. To embrace the complexity and enormity of her feelings for Kat.

_You looked up at me when you felt seen and confessed that it scared you. Not to be naked, but to be so vulnerable. I think a part of my heart fell in love with you in that moment._

_I have not fallen like this, so quickly and recklessly, since I was a teenager. But I felt lost back then. I am not lost with you. If anything I think I am found somehow._

She stops the pen again after that and she doesn’t continue. She doesn’t have any more words right now. She stares down at the page and it stares back at her, her heart spilled open.

She tears the page out of her journal.

“Excuse me, is it possible you might have an envelope?”

It takes the flight attendant a few minutes but she manages to find one, a white mailing envelope with the Air Nazar logo printed in the corner.

Adena folds the paper carefully, and then she slips it in the envelope and seals it.

She can do this now. She can get off the plane in Tehran. She can move forward. She can adventure on her own for one last round, until she and Kat find their way back to each other.

Because they will. They will find their way back to each other, of this she is certain.

She tucks the envelope away in her purse. Someday, when the time is right and she’s confident that it won’t scare Kat away, she’ll give it to her. So that Kat can know what today was like, what this journey has been like for her.  

Today is not that day, because Kat isn’t ready. But someday she will be.

 

 

She arrives in Tehran at dawn.

By the time she makes it out of the airport with her suitcase, the sky is beginning to color with orange hues against the city skyline.

She takes in the sight and the stillness, this feeling of home that is never quite home, and she stops for _fajr_. She stops to pray.

Her heart is aching, for so many reasons, and there are tears in her eyes when she opens them.

She pulls her phone from her purse, waits for it to power back on before she turns the camera toward the sunrise.

As soon as the photo is captured she texts it to Kat. Along with—

_your heart is with me_

It doesn’t quite capture what she means, but she’s not sure that any words could right now. Kat’s reply is almost immediate.

_stop, I’m gonna cry_

Then—

_i’m glad you made it safe. It’s so good to hear from you. how was your flight? where are you headed?_

There’s no way for her to explain what her flight was like, not really. Not over text.

_to my cousin’s home for now. in a few days, I’m thinking somewhere in south America. maybe Peru?_

She keeps her phone unlocked, knowing that Kat’s response will be fast.

_No way! That’s amazing_

Adena knows that she means it, but they also both know the truth. That the place she most wants to fly is right back to New York.

Someday. Someday soon they’ll be together again. And until then, all she can do is move forward.  

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments are very much appreciated and encourage me in my writing!
> 
> (p.s. you may or may not have noticed that there is a reference in this fic to something that happens in another fic of mine 'before you go (i gotta let you know)'. so if you were like wait i don't remember that happening in canon @ a part of this fic but it feels familiar...you would be correct.)


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